Casey O’Neill is a farmer and owner of Happy Day Farms in Laytonville, Calif. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mendocino Voice. If you’d like to write your own column for The Mendocino Voice, send your idea to info@mendovoice.com.
I’ve been thinking about the ways we build connection, the joys of interacting and gathering, the effort that it takes to build shared humanity. Community is both love and work, perhaps in equal measures. It takes showing up, even when we’re tired or grumpy, or it’s hot and there’s too much to do. We show up for each other; as the saying goes, “When your friends need help, you help ‘em.”
There are so many ways to show love, to demonstrate care and mutualism. I love the concept of different forms of love languages, and one of mine is acts of service. There is a magical transmutation that happens when a mundane, even drudging task becomes a gift and takes on the joy of service in the process. When we care for each other, the sum is greater than the parts, and that’s where the magic happens.
To farm is to care, to offer a love language of physical labor that begets the beauty of abundance. One of my favorite things in the world is to stand behind our market table and represent the goods we produce and gather. I love networking with other farmers, building relationships that help us to bring special offerings to our customers, who are often also our friends, relatives, neighbors.
I’ve always been fascinated by commerce, by the ways that humans engage in exchanges of the goods we need or want. I love barter as much or more than actual sales, the offering and receipt of goods valued by each party involved. The energetics of the exchange delight me, the opportunity to connect over something we each care enough about that one of us brought it to the table and the other wants to take it home to nourish and enjoy.
Food is sacred, a contract with ourselves that undergoes an alchemical reaction, powering our bodies to do the works we each undertake, yet it is also so mundane that we lose sight of the magic. We eat so often that we forget how special the interaction is within us, the strange power of our bodies to coexist with our unique microbial populations.
From web search, “an average human body contains roughly 38 to 39 trillion microbial cells. This is very close to the estimated 30 trillion human cells in the body, meaning the count of human and microbial cells is nearly a one-to-one ratio.” We are what we eat, yet we’re also more than ourselves.
The rubber meets the road for us on these busy summer weeks that include sales trips and events. We’ve been having so much fun getting out and bringing our farmers market table to dispensaries in the Bay. This week we went to 7Stars and The Bright Spot, and it’s deeply joyful to start to see the consistency of our efforts build into relationships and connections centered in the food and herb we grow. It feels good to meet people, to display the breadth of our farm on our table, to show customers our cannabis and vegetables and talk about our farm and our practices.
Just as we build healthy internal microbial populations through eating healthful foods without pesticides and heavy with vegetables and fiber, so too do we build soil in the same fashion. I love that we’re seeing more and better terpene expression from living soil, and that this understanding is becoming more commonplace. I’m glad that there is greater recognition that just like our bodies are as much “not us” as “us,” the soil is as much a microbial population as it is bits of earth, alive and vibrant, responsive to inputs in a similar manner to ourselves. Feed the soil, the soil feeds the plants.
Community operates in similar fashion to soil and individual bodies; hyphal connections form as relationships strengthen. We show up for each other, seeking balance and joy through loving care. We share effort, building strength through difficult times, and we gather in celebration of the good times. The work is what makes the results sweet, the savoring of shared human cooperation and existence.
This early Sunday morning I’m fresh off our annual Bell Springs Fire Department fundraiser and riding high on the joy of connecting with so many people on our Friday sales trip and Saturday benefit event. Small communities are good at gathering to share our limited resources to raise funds for a good cause, and I’m grateful and in awe of this life we get to lead together. On a hot August afternoon it was lovely to see so many people come out, and I appreciate the shared work that brings this event and so many others together for people to gather and break bread, sharing in the joys of human fellowship. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!